Giftz – Waulit & ItCoin ICO BTC Gifting Network Loyalty Rewards?

Giftz is a Los Angeles-based company that aims to unify the rewards and loyalty industry behind a single standard. Find out how Giftz works today in our review.

What Is Giftz?

Giftz, found online at Giftz.io, is a free global blockchain-based loyalty ecosystem for consumers, merchants, and developers.

The company is preparing to release its first reward tokens, called ItCoin Gold tokens, as part of its ICO in September/October 2017. The tokens will be used by businesses to incentivize customers. The platform is free for businesses to use – they just need to buy tokens to give rewards to customers.

As you may have heard, today’s loyalty and reward program industries are outdated, inefficient, and expensive. Companies spend an enormous amount of money maintaining their rewards programs. In some cases, companies even have billions of dollars in liabilities sitting in their rewards programs.

What Problems Does Giftz Seek To Solve?

The official Giftz page on Crowdfunder.com claims that today’s rewards programs are expensive and out of reach for most businesses. Best Buy spent $50 million just upgrading their rewards program, for example, and many businesses find the costs of a loyalty program too expensive.

Other problems include fragmentation: the rewards system is fragmented and difficult to manage. Companies must build their rewards program from the ground up. In some cases, small coalitions have formed between rewards programs, although no organization has been able to unify the industry.

Meanwhile, on the consumer side of things, consumers are missing out on an enormous number of rewards. Giftz reports that over $16 billion of rewards go unredeemed each year in the United States alone.

How Does Giftz Work?

How does Giftz plan to solve these problems? The company is creating a free blockchain rewards ecosystem, a common rewards token, and an online wallet. That wallet will come with a re-loadable debit card (available on your mobile device or in physical, plastic form).

Businesses just pay for their “points” (tokens). Businesses pre-buy these tokens to reward customers.

The ecosystem revolves around the use of a decentralized rewards network and a common cryptocurrency. Together, this network and currency allows physical or digital rewards to be distributed anywhere (between businesses and consumers or between consumers). These rewards are then collected in the online wallet.

Here’s where Giftz gets unique: businesses pre-buy tokens to reward customers. However, because a physical rewards token is passed to the consumer, the liability does not stay on the company’s balance sheet.

In other words, companies can offer powerful loyalty and rewards programs to customers without taking on billions of dollars in liability.

Overall, Giftz wants to become the go-to loyalty network for the crypto industry.

Giftz Features

Giftz plans to implement all of the following features:

Standalone Loyalty Programs:

Giftz’s loyalty programs aim to unify the rewards industry behind a single standard. Today, small businesses can’t afford to implement a strong loyalty program. Meanwhile, some loyalty program coalitions have formed, although these coalitions rarely operate between competing businesses. Giftz aims to reduce costs across the industry using its decentralized loyalty network.

Waulit:

Giftz calls its online wallet, “Waulit”. It’s a digital wallet where you can collect, spend, and transfer your rewards.

Multiple Currencies:

Giftz will introduce ItCoin Gold as the gold standard within the Giftz economy. However, in the future, the company claims it could introduce a Diamond or Platinum token that is more rare and used for big ticket items.

Virtual And Debit Cards:

Giftz allows you to have a virtual debit card pre-loaded with rewards points from your Waulit (the Giftz digital wallet). Your virtual debit card is available on your phone. Meanwhile, you can also order a physical debit card that comes preloaded with your rewards points. Both cards can be topped up at any time from within the Waulit app.

Blockchain-based Benefits:

As with any blockchain technology, Giftz emphasizes blockchain-based benefits like transparency, immutability, security, international operability, and resiliency. Once a transaction is recorded in the Giftz blockchain, it cannot be changed.

About Giftz

Giftz isn’t the name of the company. Giftz is a platform operated by Rewards Media, Inc. The company has been operating an active loyalty program since September 2015. The company’s website offers in-store cash back, surveys, videos, and other marketing materials. By March 2016, the website had 50,000 active users. In January, Giftz introduced the Waulit Consumer App onto the iOS and Android app stores.

Key members of the company includes founder and CEO John Paukulus and Founder Emilio Diez Barroso.

Rewards Media is based in Los Angeles.

The Giftz ICO

Unlike a traditional ICO, where you send money to an ETH or BTC address, the Giftz ICO is taking place on Crowdfunder.com, where you can contribute to the ICO through a number of different payment methods. Crowdfunder is an SEC-registered crowdfunding platform.

Giftz Conclusion

Giftz is creating a loyalty program that aims to unify businesses across multiple industries behind one single rewards program. With Giftz, companies can access a “free” rewards program – companies just pay for points in the platform. Those points are distributed to customers, where they can be spent across the platform.

Other key parts of the platform include the physical and digital debit card, which comes pre-loaded with rewards points. There’s also the ability for consumers to collect tokens in stores, apps, games, websites, and more through the Giftz Waulit app, released in January 2017.

Overall, Giftz wants to democratize rewards for businesses and consumers, making the industry more efficient through the use of blockchain technology. You can learn more about Giftz by visiting the platform online today at Giftz.io.